


the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

by unveils



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Bondage, M/M, Niles' hangups, Trans Leo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 01:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20684918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveils/pseuds/unveils
Summary: “I’m going to touch you.” Leo says, much calmer than he feels. “However I’d like.”





	the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

It’d started as these things often do, with a kiss. 

Leo had been wine-flushed, a bloom of red spread across cheeks as he lost a breath to a fumble, unfamiliar in the space between them. “May I--” A question never quite finished as his hands faltered to Niles’ shoulders. Niles moved, as always, to accommodate his blind spots, to hover hands where Leo’s elbows fell open around his flank-- never touching, never touching. 

“You never touch.” It was a coward’s move, to not meet his eyes, but Leo couldn’t-- instead, he followed the sharp line of Niles’ neck, his chin, his lips-- the language of his microexpressions-- the understanding as it stretched, and finally, the gentle pull of his body out of Leo’s space. It wasn’t panic that set, but something akin, something desperate. Leo’s voice cracked. “What is it about me?” 

Another question never answered. Leo had kissed him, full, impatient-- but it fell upon stone, unresponsive, hands still hovering; a barrier. Niles was the one who broke their touch-- halted still, politely, where Leo could feel the warmth of his skin, his breath on his lips. When he spoke, his voice became dusk, unfamiliar, an ugly thing for suspecting folk, for fellow guardsmen, for outsiders. Not for Leo. “Were I aware milord required such duties, I would have offered my services much earlier.” 

Leo’s chest had twisted at that, ugly, to match his expression-- his poker face was hardly ever on par with Xander’s, let alone his mother’s. 

(_You have no stomach for it, _ she’d chided, gripping his chin between her long, long nails. _The truths of the court. But you will learn._ )

“Though, I’ll admit, I expected you to have a higher level of taste. Requesting such a thing from someone as lowly and crass as I, it’s quite disdainful.” 

“That’ll be all.” He barely managed, forcing himself out of the cage of Niles’ arms, with little regard for the nausea painted on his face, his outward state. He’d grabbed ahold of the bottle of wine on his nightstand, still mostly full, and his lips met in an instant, graceless. Back turned, he closed his eyes. “Make the rounds, wake Odin-- check the-- oh, I’m sure you can find something to do.”

Niles didn’t linger, and Leo didn’t expect him to. 

**

It was weeks of sullen unfamiliarity. They rarely spoke, outside of what was necessary-- and after the war, a retainer’s necessity had become increasingly little. There was peace in Nohr, for the first time in Leo’s life, and peace made people feel safe. 

A trip through the mountains finally broke the silence-- Corrin, joyfully, on horseback, Jakob and Felicia at her side, asking her ever-pleasantly to slow to a safer pace, 

They were hardly prepared for an attack, having only packed for a day trip-- a lunch, and perhaps a touch of hunting. Leo’s armor was light, barely made to withstand the arrow that ripped through his shoulder without warning upon a sharp turn into the caverns. 

They defeated the enemy camp without much effort-- a standalone group of Hoshidan traitors that lost their families to the war. Corrin appointed herself to deal with the diplomacy of the matter while Leo was held down far, far away from the group, teeth gritted as Jakob removed from the arrow from his shoulder. 

“It’ll need to stay bandaged for a month.” He said, neutral. “And it’s sure to leave a scar.” 

How noble. A scar from a group of barely armed _Hoshidan_ . 

Niles found Leo back at the castle, choosing to linger closely throughout the night of his return like something caged, like something dangerous. Leo noticed how the others watched the two of them dance, stilted and awkward, nothing like before-- they kept their distance, but whether it was for Leo’s sake or Niles’ unwarranted glowering, he couldn’t be sure.

It was unavoidable in the bedroom.

“Will Lord Leo require his bandages to be changed?” Niles asked, finally, cool and distanced once they were alone. 

Leo snapped. 

“Would you truly ask me to bear the shame of it?” Leo’s voice is too loud, quivering in the quiet space of his bedroom. “You have served me for years, have you not? You owe me nothing. If you have no interest, then so be it, but I will not be made a mockery of.”

Niles’ face hardly falls, but after all of the years spent together, Leo knows how to read him-- the confusion, the shame, the unfamiliarity in feeling both here. He steps forward, and Leo lets him, careful to maintain a polite distance even as he makes his way into Leo’s space. “I will never have served enough,” He offers, quietly. “For this.” 

Leo watches the rise and fall of his breathing, looking for a tell-- a string to unravel the act of it, another mockery, another ruse, but Niles is as open as Leo has ever seen him, face bared to the vulnerability of his words. Still, Leo hovers, hesitant-- His hand falls over Niles’ shoulder, a parallel, but stills before meeting the cloth. 

He clears his throat, commanding his voice to hold weight. “Touch me, then.” 

So Niles does.

** 

It’s artful, the way they navigate their new dynamic. It’s far more careless than either of them are, in a way that surprises Leo. There are times Niles touches him with a force that perhaps he expects Leo wants, and Leo is always there to guide his hand, to slow him. It never escalates beyond that, beyond Leo’s lips on Niles’ and their hands tangled gently between them.

There are times when Niles kisses Leo and Leo wonders if he’s really there at all, or if it’s something emptier, an action as an ends to a means. 

That’s how they end up with the binds. 

“I’d like to try something,” Leo offers, casual, at breakfast. Odin is far too focused on his sandwich to notice the way Leo’s voice drops as he stirs his tea. “After dinner tonight.” 

Niles’ hands find the width of Leo’s headboard with ease, and he sinks into the way the wood grows into heady bounds around his wrists like it’s natural. Defenseless and naked like this, he shouldn’t be so ready to trust Leo, but he is. It makes Leo’s breath catch in his chest, stuck by the way his mouth floods with saliva. Niles grins, easy with that too, with the display of it-- he’s used to this, of course, the show-- and Leo settles a hand on his chest. 

“I’m going to touch you.” He says, calmer than he feels. “However I’d like.” 

Niles stretches his neck, rolling against the binds. “Will you treat me very cruelly, milord?” 

“Quite the opposite.” Leo responds without further explanation, pulling his hand down the stretch of Niles’ naked stomach, hands warmed with the feel of his magic. “If you’ve had enough, you’ll tell me to stop.”

Niles laughs, and Leo digs the breadth of his fingernails into Niles’ thigh, pulling his legs apart until Niles sucks in a breath. “You’ll tell me to stop if you’ve had enough.” Leo repeats, not a question, and Niles nods. 

“I always thought you were very beautiful,” Leo starts, gentle. He goes to undo his shirt collar, unbuttoning the rows until his shirt falls completely open. The strings of his pants are next, and he steps out of them completely. Niles watches, silent as he undresses, and Leo smiles at him, genuine. “Dangerous, and beautiful.” 

He moves to straddle Niles’ stomach with one fluid swing of his leg, careful not to make contact with skin below the waist. He pulls himself to his knees, lifting his head to press a gentle kiss to the spread of Niles’ palm. Open mouthed against the skin, he breathes, “How talented you are with your hands.” His lips find each fingertip, swallowing gentle kisses around them. “Is it disdainful to say that I’ve wished for them against me more than once?” 

He listens for Niles’ breath, the way it etches just that much deeper, the way it so often does when the blood runs easy from a quick kill. Leo grins, drawing himself to the side of Niles’ throat, echoing just the ghost of a kiss against the warmth of his skin there. Quiet, like there’s a need to whisper, he asks, “Or inside me, perhaps, skillfull as they are. What about that? Is _that _ very princely of me?” 

Leo exhales, pulling back only slightly to steady himself. He drags a hand down his own chest, sucking hard on his lip. It’s a brief touch-- his attention is elsewhere-- but Leo feels the way Niles tenses against his binds, watching his eyes fall to the swells of Leo’s chest. 

“Hm. Perhaps another time.” 

Leo’s hand falls down the planes of his own chest, back up to Niles’, to drag over his nipples, a hint of fingernails followed by the soft press of his callousless fingertips. His mouth trails after, wet, peppering kisses all the way down Niles’ stomach, and, eventually, to the inside of his thighs. Leo stays there for quite a while, sucking marks into Niles’ thighs, darkening the skin there before pressing open mouthed apologies, finished with soft exhales of breath. 

Niles looks as if he’s attempting a wall, trying to hold together during an onslaught of battle. The smirk is gone from his face, cheeks flushed and lips falling open, red from where he’s bitten them. It sends a pang of want through Leo, and he brings his palm to his mouth, licking a stripe down it. “What do you want?” He asks, even though he knows, even though he’s going to give it to him. 

Niles’ eyelids fall. 

“Do you want me to touch you?” Leo asks, gently, ghosting the palm of his hand down the length of Niles’ cock. “I’d like to hear you say it.” 

“This is hardly what I had in mind when you said you wanted to bring ropes into the bedroom, milord.” 

Leo ignores him. 

“I’m going to.” He answers, gathering the pre-come slicking the head and fisting Niles’ cock, once, twice, before swallowing him whole. Niles lets out a guttural noise, animal-sounding, wounded, and Leo echoes it with a sympathetic whine, softly. He watches Niles through his lashes, the way he’s tilted forward against the binds, no longer comfortably tolerating, the white of his knuckles as he makes a fist. He smirks around Niles’ cock in his mouth. 

“So many things I want to do to you.” Leo says, pulling off and watching Niles to still himself from squirming for it. “How are you feeling?” 

Niles’ eyes are on Leo’s face, avid, glassy. “You’re-- exquisite.” He inhales audibly as Leo settles back atop of him, warm beneath the layer of cloth separating them. “I’d like to see you fall apart.” Leo whispers in return, and Niles’ face twists minutely, eyelids falling low. 

Stepping away to pull himself free of his underclothes is what seems to really set Niles off. His breathing goes from heavy to ragged, to something guttural. Leo slides himself on top of Niles’ cock, guiding a hand down to tease the tip between the lips of him. His head falls immediately to the side, and Leo moans, soft, guiding himself forward along the length of it. Once he’s set a rhythm, he pulls himself forward into Niles’ space, close enough to kiss him, to grasp his chin and rest his forehead against whatever bout of skin is available while he ruts against him, Niles helpless against the raw feeling of it. 

The pace is slow, achingly so, but Leo matches it to a finger on his clit, and Niles grunts with every push forward. 

“My lord--” He gasps, “the binds.”

Leo uses his free hand to grasp ahold of one of Niles’ own, shaking his head. “Not yet.” 

There’s a moment where Niles stills fully, completely, and Leo watches every minute reaction cross his face-- beautiful, genuine. He’s abrupt, quiet until he isn’t, sorrowful and painful-sounding. Leo chases the sounds with a sympathetic kiss, the slick from the both of them making each movement between smoother, faster. The binds around Niles’ wrists vanish in time for him to press Leo back down against the bed, to drive two fingers into him with ease, setting his thumb on Leo’s clit until he’s gasping around his own orgasm, saying Niles’ name. 

In the aftermath, Niles is silent, and Leo holds him to his chest, stroking the sweat away from his hairline. It’s a gentleness that they both allow in this moment, and one Leo’s not sure Niles has ever been afforded by the way he reacts to it, arms tightening around Leo’s body as if there’s something here to lose. 

“I-” Leo falters, unable to quell the scrounge of black that always inevitably twists inside him like a pit of snakes. “I hope that was alright.” 

Niles doesn’t move from his chest, only lifts his head, a smile like the sun on his face-- something so bright it winds Leo. He feels it like an ache so deep in his chest, this moment, he can’t help but reach and grab ahold of Niles’ cheek. Niles kisses it, unashamed with the affection, and Leo feels--

So much. 

“Your lordship should act on his urges far more often.” Niles offers, taking ahold of Leo’s hand. “He is far more clever than he gives himself credit for.” 


End file.
